Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between the community and school in Arctic Bay in north Baffin Island. The objective is two-fold: first, to provide insights into the interaction between Inuit community members and school, and second, to describe and analyze the internal changes that school effects among community members. The central concern underlying the thesis is the ongoing process of Inuit cultural change.

This thesis expands the framework for studies in educational anthropology in two ways. First, the thesis examines the interaction between the community and the school from the perspective of the community, rather than from that of the school. Second, it applies anthropological understandings of social structure, social control and social personhood as analytical categories in examining the two cultural contexts. The thesis illustrates the fundamental contradictions in worldview between Inuit and the institution of schooling.

Observations of contemporary life illustrate that Inuit have been able to maintain the organizing principles of their kinship system in the transition from pre-settlement life to the community. Observations of socialization in school illustrate that the social norms and interrelational processes young Inuit learn in school contradict some of the organizing principles of Inuit kinship. Moreover, the responsibilities that Inuit adults are required to undertake as parents of school children impinge on their kinship obligations. The thesis concludes that although Inuit have maintained authentic, albeit modified, cultural practice in the community, the socialization of school, a culturally foreign institution, increasingly impinges on their normative values and social relations.